Tattered Banners allows you to take your game in a different direction. Instead of being just adventures, the party can be part of a mercenary or bandit band or run one. The rules in this supplement are well written and designed to make sure everyone in a group is involved. Sure there can only be one commander of a band of men, but the various support personalities make it possible for everyone to be a mover and shaker in their band—from a barbarian champion to a priest.

Bands are treated as psuedo characters sans attributes and specfic skill (however, this could be easily added, representing the average across the members if necessary) with the suggestion that all the players have some input into the groups activities. Bands grow with experience, albeit a bit slower than characters. The book incudes several new edges and hindrances that each band may have making it more unique. Also, like characaters there is a table for after the Adventure events.

Maintaiance and upkeep for the band is handled with a simple Support Token mechanic, that works surprisingly well. This covers details from being hired to looting. It is an easy and flexible way to keep the band motivated to find new work and/or places to pillage. Rules for recruiting new members to replace those lost in combat are included as well.

One of the highlights for me was the inclusion of the Conquest Points Campaign Chapter. This chapter gives a nice frame work on how to create a military themed campaign. It gives advice on how to structure the game, create a scope for the campaign, and imerse your group into it.

Finishing up the book is a detailed description of a few Bandit/Mercenary groups found in the Dominions. It gives a bit of history, the commander and his supporting personalities, along with the company's composition.

The book is cleanly laid out and booked marked like most of the other products for GRAmel. The artwork is invocative of the setting and well done.

Overall this is an excellent product. Its also flexible enough to be used in almost any fantasy setting—I wish I had this when I was running Hellfrost and the group had a small army travelling with them. Though the rules are desgined for bandits and mercenaries, they could easily be expanded to armies of varioius sizes.